This morning's weather on the Cape was much like yesterday's but having the launch set for a half hour earlier helped and Crew-11 in their Dragon capsule named Endeavour on top of their Falcon 9 lifted off exactly on time and went on a mission that looked flawless to us observers. They're set to dock with the ISS at 3:00 AM EDT (0700 UTC) Saturday, August 2nd.
There's a long tradition that after the critical minutes of making it to a parking orbit, the SpaceX team on the ground wishes the crew the best of luck, success with the mission and ends with a hearty, "thanks for flying SpaceX!" This goes around for a minute or two, and I thought the mission commander had a good response. This is her first trip into space, and will be a trip full of firsts for the next six months.
“I have no emotions, but joy right now. That was absolutely transcendent, the ride of a lifetime,” said NASA astronaut and Crew-11 commander Zena Cardman, shortly after entering the microgravity environment for the first time in her career. “Thank you, this has been an incredible honor.”
Each of the three remaining crew members had a small
statement. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who's the Crew-11
pilot, welcomed Zena Cardman to orbit and reveled in how good it felt to
be in space again. Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) spoke in both Japanese and English and Oleg Platonov of Russia's space
agency
Roscosmos, spoke in Russian and English. The latter two are both mission specialists.
The Falcon 9 carrying Crew Dragon Endeavour, dodged storm clouds to launch a
new crew to the International Space Station on Aug. 1, 2025. Image: Adam
Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.
This is the 6th mission for Endeavour and is expected to be its last flight. The Booster is designated B1094.3 with the three indicating this is the third flight for this one. The fleet leader has flown 28 missions so three missions is almost "factory new." Probably better than brand new since so much has been verified in flight. B1094 returned to Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and NASA Spaceflight's coverage said the two landing zones, hundreds of yards from each other were seeing their last booster landing. There has been talk lately that they're going to put some poured concrete landing pads next to their other launch pads on CCSFS, and there has been talk about using something similar to the "Mechazilla arms" that are on the Starship towers. The reporting has been inconsistent on which is likely to happen and what order things might happen, but they still have the two offshore landing drone ships they usually land on, if needed.
The weather brought an unexpected gift for us on the ground. During the first minute or so of ascent, it's not unusual to see the exhaust turn into a cylindrical, pipe-shaped cloud that may end up a thousand feet long behind the ship. Today's weather was just different enough to break that pipe off and give us two rings.
Image credit: John Pisani/Spaceflight Now. Some additional contrast
enhancement done here.
